


Accidental Kidnapping

by Asphodelia



Series: Runaways [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Puppy Love, Running Away, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 14:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9074992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asphodelia/pseuds/Asphodelia
Summary: Realizing that his jedi training is making the dark voice in his head stronger, not weaker, young Ben Solo sets out alone to live a life of adventure as an outlaw. He didn't mean to force the cute ginger boy to come with him, he was just sort of on the ship...Bonus!





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ben and Armitage are the same age in this fic, and that age is 16.

Ben could hardly stop himself from bouncing in the pilot's seat. He hadn’t expected stealing a ship to be this exciting. 

It was dangerous. He had chosen the vessel – a ship just a bit too large to be called a shuttle – because of how unremarkable it was. It was so nondescript that it must have been made that way intentionally, which meant the owner was probably some kind of criminal. Ben’s dad had taught him how to see things like that when he was younger, before he was sent to train with Uncle Luke. 

As soon as he got a safe distance away, Ben would need to find and remove any tracking system the owner might have in place for finding their lost property. Hopefully once that was dealt with they would write the ship off as a lost cause – it would be hard to track down simply because of its appearance, and Ben intended to make that even more difficult by moving constantly. Between his mother’s resources, his father’s connections, and his uncle’s power, running away was going to be extremely difficult. 

Ben was nervous to be setting out on his own, of course. He wasn’t running away because he resented his parents or his uncle (well, he sort of did, but he loved them more), but it was all getting to be too stifling. Although the idea of being a jedi had seemed exciting when he was a kid, at 16 Ben knew it wasn’t really what he wanted out of life. 

Just quitting jedi school hadn’t been an option, though. He had realized only in hindsight how little choice he had actually had in beginning his training when he was younger. The adults in his life had gone to great lengths to make him excited about it, but they had never actually asked him if he wanted to go. 

It was because of the voice, Ben knew. The imaginary friend who had told him that his parents feared him and would never let him reach his true potential because of their fear. That he was an inconvenience to them, and that’s why they sent him away. That Uncle Luke was making him weaker, not stronger…There had been times when Ben had found the voice familiar and comforting, and times when it scared him and he just wanted it to stop. Uncle Luke had been able to shut it up for years, but it had returned. It seemed as if the stronger Ben became with the force, the more closely attuned he was to it, the more easily the voice could reach him. 

In order to really be free of the dark entity that was stalking him, Ben knew he had to stop his training. He also knew that he needed to stop soon before his ability to resist the voice was completely eroded. It was already starting to make far too much sense to him sometimes. 

So, when his uncle had planned a supply run, Ben had asked to come and help. He had concealed his larger motivation for wanting to go behind the honestly antsy feelings that came from not having left the school in so long. Luke had agreed to take him and, the second he was too busy to pay attention to him, Ben had run back to where the visiting ships were parked and chosen the most nondescript one he could find.

Breaking in and getting the vessel started was easy. The only journeys Ben had been able to take off-world since he started jedi training five years earlier were with his father, and Han usually bundled their father-son time with some of his ‘business’. Ben knew ships, and piloting, and while his dad had tried to keep him away from the seedier side of his work Ben had picked up all kinds of useful information about that too.

It was what made him feel like he might make it as an outlaw. Of some kind. He had no idea what, specifically, he was going to do once he was free. It was going to be great, though. He was sure of it.

This felt like what he was supposed to be doing. 

Ben made the jump to hyperspace once he was out of the planet’s atmosphere, heading for a barely-mapped corner of the galaxy that could not quite be counted as part of the unknown regions. They were already pretty far out, so it didn't take long. He let the ship drift then – and let himself celebrate. 

He stood up and moved around a bit in what could not quite have been called a victory dance (because Ben couldn’t really dance so much as flail semi-rhythmically).

“What are you doing?”

Ben froze in a slightly awkward pose and held it for a moment before turning slowly around to face the source of the voice. 

In the doorway to the cockpit stood a boy about Ben’s own age. He had bright orange hair and was dressed in some kind of dark grey uniform. His frame was slender, his skin was pale, and overall he looked very tidy and…delicate. Pretty. There was even something about the sneer on his face as he glared at Ben with his icy blue eyes that was undeniably attractive.

“Um, hi there…” This boy must be acquainted with whoever Ben had stolen the ship from, and might even be their son. Ben had not even thought to check and make sure nobody was on board when he was rushing off the planet. Maybe the owner of the ship would have written off the loss of the vessel alone, but they probably wouldn’t write off their child. They would probably pull out all the stops to hunt Ben down. Plus, now that he had gone and kidnapped him, the beautiful boy would probably never want to date Ben. Not that Ben, as a jedi padawan, was even allowed to go around kissing cute gingers, but –

Wait. He was running away. That meant he wasn’t a padawan anymore, and that meant there were all kinds of things he could do that he hadn’t been allowed to do before. Maybe he could even do them with the pretty redhead. 

Ben grinned at that thought and shifted into a more relaxed stance, shooting the other boy what he hoped was a flirtatious look as he introduced himself. “I’m Ben. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

-

Armitage had been studying in his bunk when the ship suddenly lurched to life. He had not heard anybody board – he had been using a headset to listen to a recorded lecture – but he had definitely felt it when the spaceship started to move. At first he had simply thought that his father and his officers were back early and they were in a hurry to leave, but then when he had gone to investigate he had found…something very different. 

Wild black hair and limbs that looked too long were thrown around chaotically as the boy occupying the cockpit…danced? Exercised? Tried to escape a bee? 

“What are you doing?”

“Um, hi there…”

The other boy froze and turned to look at Armitage with a guilty expression. That was when it hit him that the ship had been stolen. Father had ordered him to stay behind, study, and watch the ship and the ship had been stolen while in his care. Father would be livid. 

If he ever saw him again. It occurred to Armitage that he, too, had been stolen. By a boy his own age with ridiculous hair who apparently suffered from eyebrow spasms. 

Far from looking guilty, his expression had morphed very suddenly into something Armitage could not name. He was grinning far too widely and perhaps as his captive Armitage should have found that intimidating, but that was impossible when it was combined with whatever it was his eyes were trying to do. 

“I’m Ben. What’s your name, sweetheart?” The boy, Ben, drawled flirtatiously. 

“Armitage.” He answered automatically, shaking his head at the confusing entity that called itself ‘Ben’. When he heard the name aloud he rushed to correct himself. “Hux! Just Hux.” Father had finally acknowledged him after he managed to stay at the top of his class for two years in a row. He had earned his surname and he was going to use it. “And don’t call me sweetheart.” 

Armitage could not think for the life of him why Ben would think flirting with someone who he had mistakenly kidnapped (it was obvious he had not expected anybody to be on board) would work out for him. The strange twist in his stomach as Ben continued to grin at him was completely irrelevant. Armitage just wasn’t used to being flirted with. If he felt anything at all besides annoyance it was only because this kind of attention was new to him. 

“Okay then, I won’t call you sweetheart, but I don’t want to call you by your last name. Last names are for enemies or work acquaintances, and I want us to be friends.” Ben wasn’t grinning quite so much anymore, but he still looked at him far more fondly than the situation should permit. Was he trying to get him to let his guard down so he could attack? “Is Armitage alright?”

He had already said he wanted to be called ‘Hux’, but he had a feeling that correcting Ben would lead to a longer conversation than he wanted to bother with. It was better to move on to the issue that was actually important right now. “This ship is property of the First Order. They will find it, and you, and you will be made to face consequences for this careless act of theft. You would be smart to leave it, and me, at the closest spaceport and run as far as you can.”

“How will they find it?”

Armitage thought immediately of the tracker inside the dashboard, but made no verbal reply. His lack of vocalization did not seem to matter as Ben was suddenly prying up the exact panel the tracker was hidden under, removing it, and crushing it under his foot. “Sorry. I try not to pry, but I kind of needed to know that. They won’t find us now.” 

“You’re force sensitive?” Armitage said in surprise; force-sensitive individuals were rare.

“Yep!” Ben was grinning again, apparently mistaking the slight awe with which Armitage made his observation for a compliment. 

“Well, it doesn’t matter. The First Order will still find you if you don’t abandon this vessel and let me go.” Somehow. Armitage wasn’t sure how the order was going to be able to find them, and he had a sinking feeling that they wouldn’t bother expending the extra effort for a mere cadet if the tracker was offline. His father probably wouldn't push for it. Convincing Ben that he had no choice but to release him and the ship so Armitage could get himself home might be the only option.

“Let you go? I’m not…Oh, yeah, I guess I can see how it would look like I was keeping you prisoner or something, but I’m not. Really.” Ben ran a hand through his dark hair sheepishly. “I need the ship, though… Hey, the First Order is that creepy extremist group, right?”

“We are only as extreme as the state of the galaxy requires of us.”

“You’re one of them!”

“Of course. I am a cadet at Arkanis Academy, and one day I will be an officer of the order.”

Ben seemed relieved.

“So you’re not really one of them yet. Just a trainee. You’re clearly brainwashed, but we can fix that.”

“I am not brainwashed, and if I were it would be no place of yours to be ‘fixing’ me. Just take me to any planet and release me!” 

-

“I can’t let you go running back to your cult and telling them about me.” Ben’s plan had been to do exactly what Armitage had just demanded of him before he knew the pale boy was affiliated with the First Order. Take him to a random planet and let him go. Now just letting him go was too dangerous. Between the force sensitivity and the name ‘Ben’ someone at the First Order might realize who his mother was, and then they would hunt him down to use him against her.

...Well, actually, even before the First Order revelation letting Armitage leave had only been Plan B. Plan A was always to convince him that he should stay so they could have adventures together and make out and stuff. 

Ben couldn’t let him go now. That meant Plan B was shot and he’d just have to put all his effort into making Plan A work. 

“I won’t tell anybody about you. I’ll say the ship was taken by some generic thug.”

Ben had spent a huge portion of his jedi training learning how to stop himself from snooping around in people’s heads, and it was better not to use the force that much if he wanted to keep the voice away, but whether or not he could trust Armitage was going to make or break this whole thing. Ben gave himself permission to check whether the cadet was being honest with him.

He wasn’t. 

“You’ll sell me out before I’m even back in the sky. You’re looking forward to it, even.” 

“Well, you did kidnap me.”

“I didn’t!”

“Just like you’re not holding me prisoner? Even though you just said you won’t let me go?”

He may have had a point. Ben groaned in frustration and started pacing. 

He didn’t want to kidnap anybody or hold them prisoner, that wasn’t him, but he also couldn’t risk being captured by a terrorist organization if he did let Armitage go. 

Armitage was amused by his dilemma, if the small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth was anything to go by.

“You clearly don’t want to be a kidnapper, so don’t be. Just let me go.”

“Uhg, I meet the cutest guy I’ve ever seen on the first day I’m allowed to do something about it, but of course he’s determined to get back to his cult of imperialist creeps.”

-

Armitage couldn’t stop himself from letting out a laugh at that. Ben was fairly clearly not a real threat and would probably end up letting him go, even if it wasn’t right away. He was just going to despair about it theatrically beforehand, and Armitage quite enjoyed watching him.

Some of his smiling might also have been preening from Ben’s open attraction to him but, once again, that was irrelevant. It was just because it was unfamiliar. 

Ben looked over at him and stopped pacing, seemingly stunned. Armitage felt his smile, which must have grown more than he had realized, shrinking as their eyes locked. Ben was approaching then, and Armitage did not have the will to step back away from him. 

Ben raised a hand and traced his thumb over his cheek, grazing the corner of his mouth which had just recently been stretched into a wide smile. Armitage noticed now that Ben was taller than him, if only slightly, and for some reason that was…nice.

“You’re beautiful when you smile. And in general. Why not just stay with me? I’m going to be an outlaw. That sounds fun, right? And I can keep making you smile. You probably don’t do that a lot back at your First Order school.”

Ben was speaking nonsense and Armitage should have told him as much and swatted his hand away, at the very least. Instead he found himself standing very still and fighting not to lean into the soft touch. “I can’t stay, I have to - I have responsibilities –“ Why was he saying ‘I can’t’ instead of just ‘no’? Why was he stuttering? Did some twisted part of him want to run off and play Peter Pan with this ridiculous boy?

“You want to stay. So stay.” Ben seemed far too pleased with himself.

“Stop reading my mind!”

“I wasn’t.” Now Ben was even more pleased and the whole thing was just absurd. 

Armitage scowled and stepped around Ben. It was tempting to just make a run for the controls and fly them back where they came from, but Armitage didn’t actually know where they were. Besides, if they fought physically Ben would win. He had yet to grow into his height, but there was definitely a strength to his form. Armitage knew how to fight, and was in very good shape, but significant physical strength had just never been in the cards for him. 

“I and the rest of the order have a responsibility to the memory of the old empire to aspire towards its former greatness. My place is at the academy, becoming a first class officer and engineer so that I may help to shape the First Order into the weapon that will shape the future of the galaxy. It is my aspiration to be the one wielding that weapon in the name of order itself, and I’ve no time for detours such as this.” 

When he turned back towards Ben, the other boy was looking at him like he was crazy. He stood in silence for a moment and blinked at Armitage twice, slowly, before he spoke again. 

“You are so brainwashed.”

“I am not!”

“Then you have a deeply flawed view of…reality. For a start, the old empire wasn’t –“ Ben cut himself off and seemed to search Armitage’s face for something. Armitage just scowled at him, sure he was about to start spouting anti-imperialist lies. Ben sighed. 

“Okay, you’re pretty far gone already, but there’s a silver lining.”

“And what is that?” Armitage crossed his arms as he asked, because Ben’s eyes on him were oddly soft and he felt the need to put some kind of barrier between them. 

“Now this isn’t a kidnapping. It’s a rescue.” 

“What!?” Armitage spat. Ben started to grin again. 

“I’m rescuing you from a life of servitude to an evil empire that doesn’t even exist anymore.” 

“Meaning you’re going to hold me prisoner.”

“Meaning I’m going to set you free!” Ben was practically bouncing he was so excited. The boy’s moods seemed to change every minute. “But yeah, no, you’re stuck with me until I de-brainwash you.” 

Ben wasn’t going to let him go. Armitage was going to have to escape on his own.

**Author's Note:**

> This is silly. But I hope it makes you smile =)


End file.
